A professor of environmental science says Mount Isa residents in north-west Queensland are being left in the dark on current lead levels in the air, while a monitoring station is offline.

The Department of Environment and Heritage Protection (DEHP) says the station has not been working since January due to staff shortages and their inability to find a local contractor to service the machine.

Environment Minister Andrew Powell say the community is not at risk because one Government and 10 Mount Isa Mines monitors are still recording hourly lead levels.

However, Professor Mark Taylor says that information is not validated.

"The public don't get a window into what's going on with the air quality during those critical periods of time," he said.

"To be honest it would seem to me that this is the job of the environment and health protection authority [Department of Environment and Heritage Protection] to do this - to collect air quality data, to provide that information to the public.

"It's not being done and it's a bit disappointing.

"The Government should be obliged to go and do the monitoring that it promised to."

Opposition environment spokesman Jackie Trad says Mount Isa residents should have been made aware that the lead air monitoring station was offline.

She says it should not have taken more than nine months.

"The fact that the Minister has kept this information from locals for some nine months I think gives locals some sort of insight into his commitment to Mount Isa and to working with the local community to mitigate the effects of pollutants in the atmosphere," she said.

The State Government says it is working to fix the situation and to recruit local contractors to maintain the station.